Those who haven’t had enough of Christmas, check out this new trailer from Fighting Owl Films, the makers of THE NIGHT SHIFT (reviewed here) called NIGHT OF THE CRAMPUS! Those who don’t know, the Krampus is sort of the anti-Santa Claus who punishes and abducts those little ones who have been naughty all year. Here’s the brand spankin’ new trailer for NIGHT OF THE KRAMPUS!

The subject of witch hunts and witchfinding always fascinated me in that it not only shows how susceptible people can be to superstition, but also how absolute power corrupts absolutely. That was the lesson I learned from THE CONQUEROR WORM aka WITCHFINDER GENERAL, it’s the lesson THE DEVILS taught us, and for the most part, it’s what MARK OF THE DEVIL passes on to the viewer as well. While my favorite of the bunch will always be Vincent Price’s turn as Matthew Hopkins, I also feel that WITCHFINDER GENERAL is the most entertaining of the bunch. One thing is for sure, watching any of these films, it is all too apparent that torture porn is definitely not something new. And while the term seems to be the standard response to any film these days that involves screaming women and sharp instruments, I think it’s worth noting that these types of films have been made decades before the SAW franchise was even thoughts about.

MARK OF THE DEVIL opens with what has become the standard of witch hunt films; a scene of torture. Having been accused of witchery, a group of women are burned, stretched on the rack, whipped and stabbed as a means to make them confess their sins. SALEM’S LOT’s Reggie Nalder plays the local Witchfinder who seems to take way too much joy in his job. When a famous Witchfinder played by Herbert Lom makes his way through town, Nalder is threatened and put out of a job resulting in a clash of Witchfinders. At the same time, the Witchfinder’s apprentice, played by an especially young Udo Kier falls for a local gypsy girl Olivera Vuco and betrays his master when she is accused of witchcraft.

The story is very operatic, with sweeping music (which is all too repetitive) and lush landscapes of the Austrian countryside. The romance between Kier and the breathtaking Vuco is amped to laughable levels with many a moment focused on Kier longingly fixing his dreamy eyes on Vuco’s many curves and batting lashes.

The film is a devilish one though. The scenes of torture are especially brutal. While Matthew Reeves’ WITCHFINDER GENERAL seemed to focus much more on character and Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS on eroticism, this one seems to be more interested in multiple and varied scenes of torture. Both man and woman alike are put through all forms of acts which explore the amount of pain a person can take, utilizing many of the Witchfinder’s trickery such as the knife which retracts into the handle to indicate guilt.

The cast in this film is what makes it worth checking out. Kier and Vuco carry the film, but I was most impressed with Reggie Nalder’s turn as the rival Witchhunter. His rat-like face filled with burn scars make for an amazing villain, it’s no wonder he was chosen as the Nosferatu in SALEM’S LOT. While he only hissed in that film, here he shows a broad range of emotion as his job is made obsolete by the arrival of Lom. Lom is strong here, but ultimately is overshadowed by the attractive young couple and the villainy of Nalder.

One of the gimmicks that went along with this film is that all audience members were given a barf bag just in case they can’t take the intensity of this film. It’s safe to say, the barf bag packaged with this DVD was left unopened and I can’t see any modern day ghoul needing it. Despite the amount of torture that goes on, this is a relatively bloodless film, relying more on the screams of the victims rather than copious amount of gore to unsettle.

If you’re a fan of witchery and the persecution of it in film, MARK OF THE DEVIL is going to be a must on completists like me. It’s more intense than WITCHFINDER GENERAL (which is the superior of all Witchfinder films) and less uncomfortably erotic than THE DEVILS, but the stellar cast saves it from being just one of the earliest installments of torture porn.

Though many hold this film in high regard, I prefer BLACK SUNDAY or even Bava’s later BAY OF BLOOD to BARON BLOOD. While Bava’s eye mixing gothic atmosphere with Giallo gore is ever-present, I found BARON BLOOD to be repeating a lot of the stuff the director already accomplished with his earlier films.

Elke Sommer and Antonio Cantafora are part of a group arriving at a gothic castle. The couple decides to evoke a spirit in the castle’s basement because…you know, that’s what you do in these films. And wouldn’t you know it? The spirit of a bloodthirsty baron rises from the dead and begins killing people.

The look of the Baron himself is the most disturbing thing. His face is dripping with blood and loose flesh and looks altogether unpleasant. Though most of the time all he does is moan and hiss, his visage is an iconic one and the most impactful thing I took from this viewing.

There are also quite a few inventive kills here as the Baron give no shits about mostly anyone who crosses his path. One scene, reminiscent of BLACK SUNDAY, has a man impaled on a bed of spikes which stab through his face. To me this was a little too similar to the iconic facial wounds Barbara Steele endured in Bava’s early film and took me out of the film because of it.

Elke Sommer is at her screaming best here. I love the way she shoves her fingers in her mouth every time she screams and shakes uncontrollably at the sight of the Baron. It’s not that this is a bad film, I just felt that Bava has done better with the material which shows up again in BAY OF BLOOD. BARON BLOOD is a decent schlocker, but nowhere near some of Bava’s other works.

At this year’s DAYS OF THE DEAD Con in Shaumberg, IL I happened upon a booth for THE COLLECTIVE, a project that I am really excited to highlight here. The folks from JABB Pictures have been making short films for a while, and in that time, they seem to have been influencing and getting to know other short filmmakers. One of the my complaints about short horror is that there isn’t any place you can see these films other than doing random searches on YouTube. Well, JABB Productions seems to have felt the same way and have made it simple to see a bunch of cool shorts in one place. I got my grubby mitts on all five volumes of THE COLLECTIVE, an ambitious project where ten filmmakers are given one particular theme to work with and then turned loose to make whatever 10 minute film they wanted. I reviewed the first volume of THE COLLECTIVE here which focused on the title “The Meat Eater”. For this second grouping of films, each filmmaker was given a small cardboard box to focus a ten minute film on. The next few paragraphs are some brief descriptions and thoughts on each of them.

”Fertility 2.0” is a trippy cyber-punk twist on the old “sell your soul” motif with a frustrated and barren wife forcing her artsy boyfriend to take drastic measures to have a baby. The solution he finds on the internet arrives at his home in the form of a box, but the couple aren’t ready for what’s inside. As an opener to this compilation, this was a bold statement that this collection of films have upped the ante. With the first collection succumbing the some rudimentary and amateurish potholes, this first film written and directed by David Ross shows that this installment is going to be intense.

Second out of the gate is Dakota Meyer’s “Illusion” starring the gorgeous Scream Queen in the making Michelle Shields (from FRANKENSTEIN: DAY OF THE BEAST – reviewed here) as a woman plagued by a small box which seem to be just out of her reach. Again, this little number ups the ante with suspense and strength of story and Shields carries the film capably and believably. Though at times, the are a few lighting issues, this is a fun little chiller with a twisted ending.

“Snap Case” is a twisted little shot of adrenaline from Eric Schneider about a man who suddenly snaps and decides to go on a killing spree, which turns out to be pretty successful until he crosses paths with a family more psycho than him. Some nice editing and a wicked sense of humor makes this one stand out.

Jay Mattingly brings us “It Crawls Back In” which shows that despite there being a running theme of “once a box is opened, it is difficult to close it” in these shorts, there seems to be a wide variety of ways to tell that tale. This one is a well paced descent into madness with some nice jump scares and some definitely creepy imagery.

Jason Hoover and Bill Hardesty are the masterminds behind a grueling scene of psychological torture as a school bully gets what’s coming to him in the form of a man repeating a series of sentences and, of course, a mysterious box. Patient and unnerving, this short is one of the best of the bunch in terms of imagination and construction of tension.

“2 Guys 1 Box” by Edward X. Young follows two losers who abduct and torture a prostitute, do a bunch of coke, and get lectured by a wizard in black all for possession of a box which ends up being something pretty awful. Humor of the blackest kind permeate this little sickie.

Up next is “Exile” from writer/director Cameron Scott and writer Dennis Lamka which feels a lot like Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN with a trio of sadistic guards, a compassionate psychiatrist (Michelle Shields again), and a monosyllabic psycho. The gory credit sequence more than makes up for some of the slow pacing that occurs in the beginning. Again, the box is central in focus for the killer and used as a tool for therapy by Shield’s psychologist, though she isn’t prepared for what is inside. HALLOWEEN-esque, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well done.

Jason Hoover directs “Boundary” which starts out right by sampling a Tom Waits song and ends up being a moody little black and white thriller about a man alone in a forest…or is he? Some nicely edited before, after, and during kill sequences make for a thrilling ride as one psychopath dares venture into the turf of another. Moody and atmospheric, this is a strong short film and one of the highlights of the collection.

”Keepsake” starts out as an add against texting and driving as a driver runs down a little girl while checking his iPhone. Written, directed and starring Shannon Feaster, the story then flash forwards ten years to follow the man as he is released from jail, yet still haunted by his mistake. Though there are some rough spots acting wise, there are a whole lot of chilling scenes of one man tormented by a ghostly apparition that won’t go away.

A narration about quantum physics and wormholes guides us through the final short which focuses on a man pittering at a desk full of junk parts and bizarre machinations. The answer to whether this is a genius or a madman is pretty fun to see. Simple editing techniques and a moody song by Trent Reznor, make Jason Hoover’s PULSE a memorable little short to go out on.

For those of you who want to support that indie spirit out there, THE COLLECTIVE seems to be the place to go. I’m going to be diving into each of the five volumes over the next few weeks and the quality and creativity in these collections seem to grow with each volume. Highlighting some damn fine horrors from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and beyond, THE COLLECTIVE proves that indie horror is alive and well in the innards portion of America!

If this week’s look at THE COLLECTIVE didn’t whet your whistle for indie horror shorts, here’s another anthology of horrors oozing with independent spirit. HATE CRIME’s James Cullen Bressack leads the charge with this compilation of five wicked short films all hosted by the lovably ghoulish Andy the Arsonist who loves fires and coincidentally, watching murderous short films. If you have that same kind of hankerin’, then you’re in the right place in the THEATRE OF THE DERANGED.

”Lust For Blood” leads the charge as a chubby kid is given a potion at a carnival only to have it turn him inside out, vomiting green stuff in a forest and filling his body with sores and icky green goo. Extra points go to this one for the use of a live cicada covered with milky green slime that looks like a chunky Shamrock Shake from McDonalds. Toss in the whitest man in the world dancing to rap music and you’ve got a winner of a goofy as shit take on slime monsters. With a multitude of slime and vomit to go around, this ultra-low budget shortie makes up for its lack of production with scenes of gore and grue, even though the gore in question is replaced by spaghetti.

“Bad Dennis” takes things into a much more serious realm as a quartet of youngsters get caught up in an ancient ritual. Though it plays out somewhat predictably, but still gets pretty intense as dreams and reality flip flop and fold back over one another. There’s some nice practical gore and a teddy bear which bleeds through its nose, which proves to be a pretty memorable image.

The third story is “Speak Easy” which starts out slow as two friends discuss the infidelity of one of their girlfriends. Things get tense pretty quick when allegations start flying and a pair of close friends become something much different as the cheatee plays out a few different scenarios in his mind. This one was patiently played, showing more sophistication and restraint than the first two offerings. This is a surprise coming from the in-your-face violence that permeated James Cullen Bressack’s HATE CRIME, showing that the writer/director has a lot of range. Fortunately though, Bressack’s more brutal side comes to light by the end of the story.

“Doll Parts” is a moody black and white glimpse into the mind of a pretty ill child who likes destroying dolls. This one has some pretty amateur acting throughout, but is well shot and atmospheric despite of that. The present day sequences in color doesn’t improve the acting and the sick kid all grown up, while gory, is definitely less creepy and more by the numbers.

The last offering, “Cannibal Blood Girl” has its own catchy theme song and is downright weird as a trio of rapists get their comeuppance when a vengeful pornstar covered in blood returns from the grave and sprays acid blood from her mouth, ass, and breasts on rapist and victim alike. This is a pretty damn sick one, not for the easily offended.

The best thing about THEATRE OF THE DERANGED is that it’s short and sweet. Clocking in at just over an hour, if one of these little nightmares isn’t striking your fancy, another will be along soon enough to take a chance on. Like THE COLLECTIVE, these shorts are roughly made and may be scoffed at by those used to more mainstream work, but all five of them had at least one moment or two worth a chuckle or a shiver or sometimes both at once.

This low budget gem gets points for some iconic scenes and a fun twist on an end of the world scenario. While we’ve seen a lot of what is going on here in many zombie films and vamp films like STAKELAND, I have to give it to the makers of THE CARETAKER for being creative in the story department and not forgetting to inject a little character in all the right places.

THE CARETAKER is a typical outbreak film as a virus is spreading across the world, turning people into sun-adverse blood suckers rather than flesh-chomping zombies. We get your typical moments of disbelief and dismay as a young couple hole up with some other survivors in a house outside of the city. There is an afflicted woman in the basement who seems to be coming down with the vampire plague and now Dr. Ford Granger (played by the Vin Diesel-ish Mark White) wants to strike up a deal with the survivors in order to ensure their continued survival.

This is where the story gets interesting. In order to survive himself, Ford, who has been afflicted with the vampire disease, offers to protect the survivors in the house from the vampires outside. In exchange, they make sure he has shelter in the daytime. Sounds like a fair deal, but things get complicated when marital struggles and indiscretions occur among the survivors all the while, the bloodsuckers are clawing at the door.

The coolest thing about the vamps in this film is that they take a page from 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and STAKELAND in making them monstrous instead of sexually charges stud-muffins and muffettes. Not only that, but each vamp is out for him or herself, causing them of attack one another as the food supply lowers. This makes for some pretty intense scenes of vamp on vamp fighting.

Director/writer Tom Conyers does a great job of making sure he’s showing us one scenario after another that you haven’t seen before. I especially loved the standoff between two vampires in two buildings separated by nothing but a yard full of sunlight. The means by which Ford makes his way to the other building is as iconic and superheroic as anything you’ve seen in a BLADE film.

Better than your typical indie fare, THE CARETAKER does a whole lot right with very little money and is definitely worth searching for if you’re in the mood for vamps as monsters and not lovers.

Though not as good as the intensely gore and funny COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES (reviewed here), GANGSTERS, GUNS & ZOMBIES does a decent job of letting the world know that, if you didn’t learn from COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES and SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Great Britain is the wrong place to stage a zombie apocalypse.

Losing points for originality, the film starts out basically the same way RESERVOIR DOGS does with a bank robbery gone wrong, a wounded robber squirming in the back of a van, and the rest of the crew getting restless. Just when things can’t get any worse, zombies begin to start running around and eating people. As one safe house after another is ransacked by the zombie hordes, the crew gets desperate and holes up in a domesticated home with an old lady and her daughter, Cassie. Proving to be a safe haven for a short while, it gives Q, the typical robber with a heart of gold, a chance to fall for Cassie, and while their relationship blossoms, the world swirls down the drain, leaving them to make a mad dash for a boatyard in hopes to sail away to an uninfested land.

As you read from the description, this isn’t the most original of stories. Practically every element has been done before, but here, put together in this order and in this way, it works with GANGSTERS, GUNS & ZOMBIES. The cast is pretty likable and the directing, while straight forward and no frills, takes the viewer on a fun ride throughout.

There are quite a few scenes too many of the robbers in a van whizzing past one scenario of zombie attack after another to the point of showing that is it obvious the film is lacking in the story department. The tenth time the van speeds by a group of zombies feasting on some poor soul had me rolling my eyes.

That said, the effects are decent and the humor isn’t painful to sit through. GANGSTERS, GUNS, & ZOMBIES feels like a low budgeter made by fans of the genre who just wanted to make their addition to it. And the film does that. As the behind the scenes footage during the credits show, this seemed like a fun film to make and had the story tried a bit more, it may have been more than just a mix of stuff we’ve seen before.

What I’m seeing more and more of these days are smart people making films that do not exceed their budget. These are small films, but not lacking in good ideas, albeit small ones. Such is the case with NATALIE’S LOSE LOSE, which takes place, for the most part in a small room, with a small cast, and a whole lot of dialog. If anything from the script to the acting is done wrong, this film would fall on its face, but that doesn’t happen. Instead it seems writer director Eric Williford delivers a strong script, acted well by the small cast to deliver a tense thriller which definitely festers under the skin.

A woman (Natalie played by Danielle Adams) wakes up bound to a chair. In the room with her is a silent woman wearing a gasmask. Over the loudspeaker, a voice asks her questions about Natalie’s life. As one would imagine, Natalie is confused and disoriented and like the viewer, wondering what the hell is going on. But over the span of time, things are revealed simply through dialog and some crisp editing pitting Natalie in a not so good light and maybe she deserves to be in this predicament she has found herself in.

I’m not going to go into too much detail of the plot other than that. The entire film, for the most part, takes place in this cramped room, with the intensity solely relying on the script and actors reading the lines, both of which to a very nice job. This could easily been a train wreck if a lesser actor or a flawed script were involved, but it never falters as Danielle Adams’ performance is believable throughout. Things are kept ambiguous and those wanting all the answers may be left scratching their head in the end, but the rollercoaster of wordplay and interrogation that takes place during this movie is one that should be studied by those interested in scripting and strong storytelling despite meager budgets.

NATALIE’S LOSE LOSE is an unconventional thriller which toys with one’s head before digging its fangs in for the kill. The film is only recently completed and should be available some time in 2013 for all to see.

Though many filmmakers try, it’s harder than one might think to capture that lightning in a bottle mixture of horror and humor that was so prevalent in EVIL DEAD 2. Most get the slapstick down pretty well, but there was that ever-present sense of dread and horror that made the humor all the more effective and special. Even Raimi couldn’t recapture that feeling for the too-goofy ARMY OF DARKNESS, in my opinion, but half a world away, Chai Yee Wei has done just that with this demented anthology of short horror vignettes he calls TWISTED.

Just in case you didn’t get enough short film compilations above with this week’s indie goodness filled THEATRE OF THE DERANGED and THE COLLECTIVE, TWISTED brings you another group of short terrors, though these were made with a considerably higher production value and sophistication in the acting, camerawork, and story departments.

Right off the bat, the first little short schmelds horror and humor seamlessly as a deplorable man who cares more about his new car than his pregnant girlfriend has a car accident and is haunted by her dead body. More so than all of the other films, this one reminded me most of Ash’s desperate battle with the undead as the jerk boyfriend must don a suit of armor made of hubcaps and battle his undead girlfriend with a giant wrench. The slapstick action, mixed with copious amounts of gore and very real scares is amazingly orchestrated. There were places during this first sequence where I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream and found myself doing both. This first sequence starts this film out with a bang.

Though it’s not as inventive, the second sequence, centering on a pair of male flight attendants who resort to roofie-ing their co-workers in order to get laid is just the right side of wrong and filled with the same kind of gallows humor that threaded through the first vignette so well. This one is more bloodthirsty simply because of the snowball effect of one wrong leading to a whole series of more wrong doings.

The tongue and cheekiness comes back in the third section as a phony paranormal investigator gets a case that is the real deal. This installment sustains the level of fun while never forgetting the chills as the charlatan and his bumbling assistant are hired by a mother who is concerned that her daughter is possessed. Though he doesn’t believe it at first, the investigator is forced to remember his lessons of exorcism he has long forgotten when the little girl strapped to a bed nearly bites his nipple clean off through his shirt and starts speaking with multiple voices. But there are even more devious things going on here as well as this installment gets mighty twisty by the end of the tale.

The cool thing about this film is something I don’t really know if I should spoil, but let’s just say that this is more of a PULP FICTION style collection of tales than CREEPSHOW. It’s fun to see how each of these tales fit together in such unconventional ways. Through and through, this is one of the more successful anthologies I’ve seen in quite a while.

TWISTED opened overseas over the summer, but I’m not sure when TWISTED is going to be available for the masses. Rest assured, I’ll be sure to let you know when this smart, funny, and scary film does become available.

And finally…this cautionary little poem used to scare the shit out of me as a kid. As we creep into the new year, enjoy LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE “The Goblins Will Get You”…